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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863173">Something Simple</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spayne/pseuds/Spayne'>Spayne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Words and Numbers [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Killing Eve (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:40:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,553</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863173</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spayne/pseuds/Spayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion piece to Numbers and Counting. </p><p>Eve is also coping, mostly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Words and Numbers [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>210</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Something Simple</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is the threatened companion to Numbers and Counting, although this can probably be read as a stand alone.</p><p>Just like that story the subject is anxiety and panic attacks although this story is less explicit in the detail. But again, if that is a trigger, you may wish to skip.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You wake when she slides herself out from under your leg. You casually threw it over her before you drifted off to sleep earlier, it’s a trick you’ve learned to help you keep track.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You know the routine now. She hovers for a few moments, you rearrange yourself in an imitation of lightly disturbed sleep. The bedroom door closes near silently but not quite.The fourth step from the bottom creeks. The spring on the front door groans and then clicks back into place. You know it all by heart now, and it’s only getting more frequent.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">You turn and stare at the ceiling. You wait a minute or two then take a jumper of hers from the chair in the bedroom. Who</span> <span class="s1"> knows how long you’ll be sitting in the cold tonight. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Then you begin to retrace her steps. You leave the door open, you’ve learnt that it’s easier for when you have to quickly retreat back to bed, you skip the forth step on the staircase. </span> <span class="s1">Who knew that you would turn out to be the more effective at these stealth tactics.</span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She’s out on the decking again. The same spot as usual. You sit down near the door, close your eyes and wait.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It isn’t the life that you were expecting. Not that you expected normal when you first parked up outside the small timber house you now call home. You sort of expected the Her from before, all confidence and elegance. A home plucked from a budding architect’s Instagram. All of it, her included, chic as shit. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">What you got was the version of her that she’d only offered to you in glimpses. A bit of a dork, someone who cuddles, someone who laughs whilst she reads in bed, someone who likes it when you hold her hand in the day; someone who wants to be loved. So yeah, not the life that you pictured, it is a life that is so much more. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was all cute and fun and surprisingly easy. It is still all of those things but it is also now you sitting for hours in the cold, hoping that she’ll keep control that she’ll start to breathe normally again, that she’ll be ok.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The first time it happened she wasn’t anywhere near as composed as she is sitting alone out there tonight. She wasn’t as used to it you realise now, the thought squeezes something in your chest.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">That night she tore from the bedroom, her side of the bed damp with sweat. She was gone before you had the chance to say anything. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You looked out the window to see her on the front decking, shoulders heaving and hands gripping onto the rail. You slipped out of bed to go after her, but when you reached the front door you looked out to see she had moved to sit on the floor. Her eyes were closed, intense concentration clutching at her features. Her breath coming in harsh ragged gasps.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You knew what this was. You shouldn’t have been surprised really, the things she has seen, the things she has done....</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You watched as she slowly calmed down, and suddenly it all felt wrong. She didn’t want you to see this you realised. It was a private moment, it’s not something that she had chosen to give you. Not yet. So you crept back upstairs, got back into bed and waited. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She returned eventually. She slipped into bed but didn’t reach for you, didn’t touch you at all. It was so unlike her, a difference that you noticed even back then. You lay there torn with indecision, you knew she wouldn’t accept sympathy, not if it was offered openly as that. So you shifted and threw what you hoped appeared to be a sleepy arm across her chest, burying your face against her shoulder. She froze. A noise caught in her throat and a shuddering breath out before her fingers reached for and tightened on your arm.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You questioned whether it was implausible that you would sleep through her clawing fingers digging into your skin. Honestly you didn’t know what to say to her so you pretended to sleep. Coward every time. Especially with her. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You decided to talk to her in the morning, but she woke you with harsh and demanding hands. Her eyes intense with something you didn’t have the words to name so you stayed silent.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">That was a jarring experience, but something you are used to now. Back in London, when you allowed yourself to, you imagined sex with her to be intense and dramatic, and whilst it can be in parts, mostly it’s just... really fun.<br/></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">That the best description for it. She teases and encourages and makes you laugh. Of course it doesn’t hurt that no one has ever made you come like she can. But it’s just really fucking fun. She demands full participation and gives the same in return. She likes feedback, of course she does. Then she offers the same honest critique right back. Sometimes a little too indelicately for your taste but no one gets any better without constructive criticism, you suppose. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So it was ....weird..... for things to suddenly shift. But on nights when this darkness swims through her mind, or mornings after a night spent on the porch it’s completely different. It’s like having sex with a completely different person. But then she’s always shifted through characters so easily in the past you don’t know why you were so surprised. She won’t accept the softness she normally craves, she brushes off all attempts to reciprocate. She just wants to fuck you until your legs cramp up, and even the lightest touch is too much. Her hands gripping a little too tightly, her teeth a little too sharp. You decided that if it was easier to just let her take comfort in your body then you weren’t going to question it. If you’re both into it where’s the harm?</span>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Sitting out here on yet another night, you wonder whether that has been the right call.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Its gone on like that ever since. She’s fine for days or weeks sometimes. She’s funny and charming and sweet and annoying. Then she withdraws and she’s distant and tense, angry and lost. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Honestly you have no idea what to say, no idea what to do. So you watch. Old habits, you suppose.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You stand close enough that you could intervene if it ever got too much for her to deal with alone but you don’t ever let on that you know. It makes for a strange existence.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When she stares too long at something, or grips too hard, you burn with a desire to cleave your way into her mind and tear out whatever has troubled her. But you stay silent. Watching her struggle with this is the slowest torture you could have devised for yourself.<br/></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Tongue tied is what people call it. It’s a fair description.</span>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">For some what’s happening to her would be justice, and she might well deserve worse. But for you it’s just the person you love, struggling and doing it alone.</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Of course she’s done some awful things. But you made your peace with that long before you told her that you were returning the hire car to the airport and asked that she collect you and bring you home after.</span>
</p><p class="p2">Since then you’ve spent hours sitting here like this, desperately searching for the right words. A way to fix this for her. To offer her some measure of peace. The words don’t come. They never do. You increasingly blame and hate yourself, as if every gasping breath and tear was a result of your own personal failing for not preventing it.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You hear her breath even out. Finally. You begin to relax. Now is when you would normally sneak back upstairs. You move to stand but as you do you catch a glimpse of her resting her head on her folded up knees. You think you hear the chocked off sound of her crying.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Suddenly it’s too much.<br/></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You can’t keep on waiting and watching before eventually letting her try to fuck this out of her system the following morning. Was it arrogance or laziness which made you think that might work? You’d like to think it was simply blind hope. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You’ve long felt that what she needs are words. But maybe the mistake you made was thinking that the words she needed had to be yours. Maybe she is the one that needs to find the words and it was never anything for you to fix at all.<br/></span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">You know she won’t find the words, perhaps she won’t even look for them, particularly if she doesn’t believe that anyone is there to listen. </span> <span class="s1">You make a decision.<br/></span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You push open the door. She tenses but doesn’t move her head from her knees. You sit down next to her and ache to touch her but hold back.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">You struggle for a way to tell her that you’re there for her. That you always will be. That she isn’t alone. The words don’t come. Of course they fucking don’t.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So you decide to start with something simple, reminding yourself that it was never about your words at all. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Are you ok, Baby?”</span>
</p>
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